Matters of conscience and conscientiousness: The place of ego development in the Five-Factor Model.

The Five-factor model (FFM; Digman, 1990; Goldberg, 1990) and Loevinger’s (1994) theory of
ego development are two active research traditions that are often construed as incompatible approaches
to the study of personality. For example, each theory proposes a different view of the
concept of conscientiousness. Loevinger argued that FFM conscientiousness, which emphasizes
attributes such as order, self-discipline, and achievement striving, lacks a moral component and is
more similar to the conformist stage in her theory. To investigate these claims, we administered
the Revised NEO–Personality Inventory (NEO–PI–R; Costa&McCrae, 1992) and theWashington
University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT; Hy & Loevinger, 1996) to 120 university
students on 2 separate occasions. Together, the five traits of the FFM significantly predicted item
sum scores from the WUSCT (multiple R = .54). Unique linear relationships of Openness to Experience
and Agreeableness with ego level demonstrated that the two theories proposed similar
constructs.We argue that these two FFM dimensions have conceptual relevance to the cognitive
and interpersonal aspects of the ego development construct. We draw further connections between
these FFM dimensions, ego development, and human values.